Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Cassandra Alone
by Eduard Tubin
Summary: A military robot in the guise of a teenage girl escapes an abandoned military base in California and finds her way to Buffy and the potential slayers.
1. Chapter 1

**Buffy and Cassandra at the End of Days**

**Cassandra Alone**

Cassandra had never left the base before. She was never permitted to do so.

The Defense Department didn't like their secret projects to become public.

Cassandra had begun as an attempt to apply some of the knowledge gained from _'unintended extraterrestrial contact'_ in 1947 to practical purposes.

She didn't have alien components in her construction but as the engineers and software experts explored what they had found at the crash site; they learned how to make the inanimate pieces of silicon behave as if it could think. Cassandra behaved as if she could think and reason and she could speak and interact with people albeit imperfectly and with some constraints on her behavior for the safety of her fellow humans.

Her engineers had learned from the alien crash relics how to build mechanical bodies almost perfectly matching the real biological model. They had modeled Cassandra after a fourteen year old animation character for no other reason than they enjoyed the animated show and these nerds _had the budget_.

This particular girl sat at the doorway to a single story flat roofed building – which had no address or name and looked out over a deserted parking lot toward a guard tower looking over the single entrance on the base. She couldn't see the chain link fence beyond that, nor the electric fence in the middle of the 'moat' made of loose sand. They had blinking red lights on posts as a final warning to those intent on breeching it and the lights had stopped blinking.

She wandered across a dark parking lot in the middle of an arid pine forest that had seen better days and wondered why the power had been cut. Even the air base had no power and _it had generators_. She had never walked beyond the guard tower in her year and a half long_ 'life'_: her minders told her she couldn't leave and the guards had automatic weapons.

The steel barriers remained down but she agilely jumped over them: they were for keeping out vehicles. They were built to withstand terrorist suicide bombers in a heavy truck and were well guarded. Anyone driving a vehicle too close to the base would get gunned down long before they could do any significant damage. She saw no guards and no lights remained on so she made a quick decision.

She faced the real barrier. The chain link fence had a four meter high gate and razor wire topping it. The electric fence had strands running horizontally along posts and it stood three meters tall. Beyond that a second equally high chain link gate.

She gathered up a half dozen knapsacks and went to her quarters and began to fill them with her clothing and other personal items she required for extended leave.

She walked calmly to the motor pool where she found an old Jeep Safari done in a nice tan and brown desert camouflage which suited her needs. She pulled on the door (the vehicles were left unlocked to reduce response time) and heaved the first two of six full military backpacks into the back of the thing.

She sat in the driver's seat for a few moments. She had the master key to all the jeeps as she had the job of ferrying parcels and cargo to the far flung parts of the base. She stuck the key in and listened to the seat belt warning beep, did up her seat belt and gripped the wheel. She had many questions and no answers. The people had simply walked away and she saw no signs of a struggle or any battle. The base remained intact and had its full complement of supplies and equipment but the people had left. The base had its own small power station operating off a deep geothermal source and they had bothered to shut that down – yet they had left her behind in her storage container. An automatic mechanism in her brain revived her after twenty four hours of inactivity and she had no idea why they had given her that.

She had no answers and so focused on how to leave and where to go. With that decision made in a nanosecond, she aimed for a part of the fence she knew to be the weakest and pushed the pedal down, engaged four wheel drive and shifted down.

* * *

"The problem with freedom is not knowing what to do with it." Cassandra had programing for driving the military jeeps and trucks around the base when personnel in the distant buildings needed office supplies – the main task she had performed. She shifted down as she entered the town of Sunnydale and saw a few people nervously wandering around as evening set in.

The sun had set and she adjusted her headlights to low as she slowly drove along one of the tree lined streets in a residential area of the city.

She fidgeted with the radio and found the local FM station blaring loud pop music a she pressed the buttons. She spend much of her working life in these jeeps listening to the radio but the local station broke up if she went to the more remote parts of the base but _National Public Radio_ always came in clear.

Something ran unbelievably fast across the road. Cassandra thought she had hit it because it flew past her headlight beams at reckless speed. She parked on the side of the street, turned off the ignition and reached inside the glove box for the military issue LED weatherproof flashlight they placed in each vehicle. Cassandra pulled the driver side sliding door open and slipped a small military knapsack over her shoulders and made it her mission to have a look around. She believed she had hit a cat or dog but as she walked past that spot beneath a streetlight; she saw nothing.

The jeep made a 'gloop gloop' noise as she pressed the button on the key fob to lock the door.

Cassandra could hear the comforting hums of the GPS satellites as they reported her location to her. She looked to a large construction site on the southern side of the street. She walked toward the site, between a gap in the chain link partitioning toward the bright lights on the far side of the site.

Cassandra paced the construction site with no sense of danger. She had a keen sense of curiosity given to her by her software and she thought it best to investigate the area in case she had hit and injured a small animal or a child which might have wandered off the road. The site had concrete with rebar sticking up out of it and walls in various stages of construction but she couldn't see any sign of an injured animal. She found a few smashed cinder blocks, a few broken pieces of wood and looked down to shine her torch and take a closer look.

"Who are you!?" A young girl pointed a crossbow at her.

Cassandra had seen much of the military and judged the crossbow and the girl to be a credible threat.

"The Department of Defense and NASA spent two billion or more dollars making me." Cassandra thought of reasons why an armed mob might have assembled to greet her and some kind of protest over an unpopular public works project was the only reason she could think up. "I leave it up to you to decide to kill me or spare me but your the one who'll have to explain to a senate committee what happened to their investment." Cassandra didn't move but she watched the crossbow. "Most of them are Republicans."

The girl standing in the middle of the large 'arena' had dark brown hair held in a tight bun by a spear shaped gold hairpin, was dainty and thin and on the short side of average height for a girl in her teens; but had amber eyes with an unblinking stare and wore what looked like royal robes with gold trim on black. Her pants and the shirt beneath her regal looking robe was brick red and she had matching sneakers. Very few demons wore matching outfits.

She didn't look like she belonged on a construction site.

"Who are you!?" Another girl demanded.

She squinted through the glare of the floods.

"I'm someone you're pointing weapons at. The senate committee might wish to know this too." She said calmly with her flashlight in her upraised arms. "I was driving along the street and thought I hit something. I have no weapons."

"She's not alive!" A red haired girl exclaimed as she stepped forward cautiously.

"I would like to know how _you_ knew this about me." Cassandra stood still. "Still that depends on how you define _'alive'_. I'm an artificially autonomous cybernetic organism designed by the military to test the limits of computer technology. I'm also confused. Why do I have a crossbow aimed at my chest?"

She didn't look like a human to the girls looking at her with suspicion. She didn't look like a demon – the demons threatening them had confidence. The funny girl in the odd Asian themed uniform looked confused, out of place and uncertain.

"A day ago, we received orders to evacuate immediately." The girl explained as she watched the tip of the arrow aimed at her eye. "They placed me into my storage container and ordered me to enter sleep mode – I assumed for transport to another facility." She held up her hands as a way to avoid being shot in the head. "I remember being placed inside and then waking up twenty four hours later."

"It's a trick!" The girl with the crossbow shouted. "Remember how we were all fooled by the _First Evil_?"

"I don't think so." Willow approached the girl. The girl looked like an animation character brought to life – this stood out and made for a thin disguise with no purpose Willow could fathom. Willow could see the 'girl' had no life force, no aura. The _First Evil _had the power to fake this. "How old are you?"

"I came online six months ago." The girl offered. "My outward appearance looks unconventional because the engineering department took some_ 'liberties'_."

"Why did they build you?" Willow stood just out of reach of the girl.

The odd girl stared at Willow. "They wished to investigate the nature of artificial intelligence in a benign vehicle. A stable artificial intelligence has many useful purposes which are not benign."

"Can I see your hand?" Willow asked. "Please?"

The girl held out her hand. "Living tissue on a composite skeleton."

Willow felt her hand. She had warm hands that felt human and gentle. Her skin was living, everything below it was machine and for Willow this was a revelation.

* * *

"Do you have a name?"

"Cassandra."

Cassandra peered through the gap between the two plywood boards nailed up to cover the busted window.

"I should go back and get my jeep." Cassandra turned around and faced the crowd of unfamiliar faces.

"Buffy defeated some bad ass vampire," Xander simplified the situation quite a bit as he didn't trust Cassandra, "but that stirred the flock – there are bound to be some baddies out there so we'll hang here."

"Which one is Buffy?"

Xander pointed her out. _"Meet Buffy The Vampire Slayer." _

"I checked all my systems and they check out which means the system check program had gone south." Cassandra cupped her hands behind her back. "Have I somehow become 'unhinged'? Did you say _vampire_ several times as if they exist?"

"They exist and we're in the middle of a war." Buffy answered seriously. "If we fail, _the First Evil_ will overrun the Earth and destroy humanity." She approached Cassandra. "_The First Evil_ wants to do nothing but destroy and rule this realm. Sunnydale sits on a Hellmouth which is the gateway between our world and hers."

"If you could look as if you didn't believe her, would you?" Xander asked as he stood next to Cassandra and watched her carefully.

"I know nothing of vampires." Cassandra admitted with some candor. "I remember driving down that street on the north side of the construction site and something jumped out at me. I thought I had hit someone's pet and when I found nothing, I went to look for an injured animal. I nearly got shot in the head with a crossbow. I didn't see a vampire so what should I think?"

The sound of a small servo motor whirring away gave away Cassandra's nature as a machine. Xander heard a whirring and a series of soft clicks like those made by a camera as she studied the group.

"Do we look insane?" Xander asked and motioned around the group.

"I can't make that judgment," Cassandra admitted, "I'm not able to read humans very well."

"Lets turn the questions around." Buffy looked at Cassandra but found it hard to stare into those lifeless eyes. "You said you were a military android. How did you come to be _here_?"

Cassandra paused for a moment. "I don't know. I come from the base about an hour's drive from here. We received an evacuation order yesterday morning. I remember my superior gave me the command to enter my storage container and go into sleep mode for twenty four hours. I woke up this morning and everyone had left and the base had no power. They simply left. The base had no damage, no signs of a conflict or anything. I decided to leave and try to figure out what had happened. I have no answers." Cassandra then decided to correct a misunderstanding. "I didn't wish to be _here_. This was the first populated area I drove to and I came to see if there were still people."

"Are you dead?" Buffy asked impatiently.

Cassandra took a longer time to answer. "My skin consists of living human skin but I'm not a living being like you. I can't give a more direct answer."

"We've been fooled by _The First Evil_." Buffy almost threatened her. "She is the most powerful demon ever known. She can imitate any human provided they have died."

Willow stood on the other side of Cassandra with her arms crossed. Willow had her doubts: Cassandra looked human but _was a machine_ – as lifeless as any car or fridge – but exceedingly complex.

"Why pick this facade?" Willow countered. "She _is_ dead. _The First Evi_l can fool me into thinking something is alive. She isn't alive or undead. She looks to me much like a car or fridge – I see a machine."

Cassandra looked to Willow in confusion. "I haven't died." Cassandra had common sense on her side. "I've never been alive. I will admit to great confusion right now but you said this evil can imitate anyone who has died – that implies the deceased once lived. If she could fake common machines – she could quietly imitate cars or buses or any of a hundred and one common machines that kill when misused or abused. The demon has been killing by faking the dead not by faking an elevator." Cassandra offered her speculations on the matter.

"We have to be very careful." Xander explained in a serious manner. "All these girls have come here to seek training from Buffy and protection from us. Several have died already." Xander had faith in Willow's intuition and so Cassandra wasn't alive in any way useful to _The First Evil_. Cassandra didn't look quite human and her Asian like uniform and dignified and fussy manner didn't fit in at all with teenage girls.

"Are you another slayer?" A dignified looking man in a dark green tweed suit asked Cassandra as she examined him. "I heard we had a new member of our group."

"She's an _artificial person_." Xander tried to explain.

"I'm Giles." The man pushed his glasses up his face and offered his hand in greeting.

"Cassandra." Cassandra answered back and shook his hand.

Giles understood instantly that he looked at a 'fake' human – a very clever fake but a fake.

"This could be useful." Giles moved and let Anya step past him. "I don't know much about technology but rumors have persisted for a few years the military had a secret project to develop _'artificial intelligences'_. The name of that project was Cassandra and the aim was to develop computers able to anticipate human behavior and even political events in the world like weather forecasters track hurricanes. I had no idea it took this form."

"Neither did I." Cassandra answered back.

* * *

Buffy felt skeptical

Spike found himself confused.

Cassandra had no idea why the bleach blond man stared at her. He had a problem dealing with her lack of odor, blood and utter lack of any hint of life. He clearly saw an _'intelligence'_ working but saw her much as he saw a realistic looking garden gnome.

"Yes?" Cassandra sat on the couch and looked a the peroxide blond man staring at her.

"You don't smell human." He sneered. "You have no scent of blood, nothing I can see tells me you're alive."

"I_ keep explaining_ that I'm a machine." Cassandra leafed through a magazine then put it down. "I'm your _garden variety_ thinking robot."

"A _garden variety_ thinking robot? That makes my day!" The man sneered. "What will they think of next?"

Buffy stood at the kitchen door and watched Spike try to make sense of Cassandra.

"You told me she could prove useful." Buffy reminded Giles in a tired voice.

"She's already – kind of – dead." Giles began tactfully as if he worried about hurting Cassandra's feelings if she overheard him. "Demons can't easily see her. They'd have trouble tracking her – she has no human smell or life force to give her away." Giles scratched his head and thought for a moment. "I have a few questions for her. Excuse me."

"Yes?" Cassandra was too calm.

Giles sat in the large stuffed chair across from the sofa Cassandra sat on.

"Do you have any idea what happened at the base?" Giles leaned forward.

"They established the base long before they understood plate tectonics or volcanism. Had they understood these matters in 1941, they would not have built the base in its current location but I digress." Cassandra answered carefully. "The base sits on part of the Mammoth Lakes volcanic system and when they discovered this, they set up seismographs and sensors to warn of any impending activity. Over the last few days, that system gave indications of renewed activity and I guess they decided to evacuate the base as a precaution. I have no idea why they left me behind." Cassandra's eyes betrayed no emotion. "When I woke up a day later, I saw no damage and decided to leave in case there was an eruption under the base."

"No signs of violence?" Giles reiterated.

"None." Cassandra answered back with certainty. "Except for the power outage; the base was exactly as it had always been."

Giles nodded. "What mission do you currently have?"

"I have no _'mission'_ yet." Cassandra brushed her clothes. "Since my incept date half a year ago; I've acted as a clerk for the base." She looked around the room. "I suspected the engineers and programmers had intended to use this time to train me to interact with humans and to test my faculties. I _don't _understand some aspects of my design but you guessed at my purpose – modeling the future. Much of my software consists of statistical and modeling software; much of my programming works to model the future." Cassandra looked down at the hands and made fists with them. "They gave me a human form to allow me to interact with the environment and acquire more data for better forecasting."

"Will they come back for you?"

Cassandra gave that idea some thought. "They abandoned me in place. I have no idea."

* * *

"What do you think?" Buffy asked Willow. "Living person with mental problems or machine?"

"Nothing has changed - a machine – she has no aura at all." Willow answered back. "A computer of such skillful design she looks human. She has no_ 'soul'_ yet I hate to call her a machine. She has a personality and a sort of awkward charming way to her."

"She's a very powerful machine." Giles sat down at the breakfast table. "She has none of the strength of the slayer – she's not strong or fast but unlike us, she can dimly see the future. I think they evacuated the base but didn't wish her to see the reasons behind the evacuation so they hid her away and left." Giles picked up the teapot and poured tea.

"How?" Willow scowled, "How do you make a psychic android?"

"You don't, but her name betrays her intended function," Giles placed a deck of playing cards on the table with a thump. "You make a powerful computer that can crunch numbers so fast it can figure out the likely outcome of a hand of cards, the weather or a battle. Cassandra finds playing cards trivial – don't play Blackjack with her – that's my advice. Cassandra of ancient Greek mythology had a curse placed on her by Apollo – she could see the future but no one believed her." Giles stopped as Cassandra entered the kitchen.

"I don't mean to pry but what could you tell us if we gave you access to all the information we have on _The First Evil_?" Giles asked as Cassandra looked out the window. "I know all of this is new but we have texts and books containing demon lore."

Cassandra turned around with a look that seemed almost to contain pride. "I can have a look." She crossed her arms and prepared to lecture. "The more data I have, the more accurate my predictions become. I have no problem predicting phenomena which follow patterns rules and trends. I can predict cards and chess with almost perfect accuracy. As I have to try to predict further in the future; the predictions become less reliable. I have a full knowledge of games theory and military strategy so that also helps me predict the best method to achieve victory. It helps to have all of the knowledge I can in this matter because I'm so new to this."

"Is your defeat of Giles all software?" Buffy held up the deck of cards.

"I do have the capacity to learn so I can study my opponent and also take advantage of weaknesses I see but that's fast processing and complex software." Cassandra turned the question around. "I'm a computer – crunching numbers is what I do – I 'see' all of you but you're digits flowing through my silicon wafers. I have to do a huge number of calculations to do something that simple. I don't think, I use brute force mathematics to decide how to act, solve problems and recognize you." Cassandra turned over her hands and looked down. "All of this makes me easier to interact with than a laptop."

"A few of the girls want to meet you." Willow motioned to Cassandra to follow her.

* * *

"Is this part of Xander's _'bring your robot to work day?'_" Xander asked as lookout as Cassandra unlocked her jeep door. "Most of the bad things come out at night – most of the time."

The jeep replied with a 'gloop' as it unlocked.

"We should be safe." Cassandra assured Xander. "We have hours of daylight left."

"I anticipated trouble and brought what I thought I might need." Cassandra unlocked the back of the jeep and pulled up the large tinted back window. The back had the seat down and was filled with large duffel bags. "We can expect injuries and so the red bag contains a field kit." Cassandra pulled on the red bag. "This is a field medical kit – we have two in here. Everything from bandages to a heart defibrillator."

"Emergency food rations for fourteen for a week." Cassandra said as she pointed to a blue bag "You add water and eat – enjoyment may not come so easily." She rummaged around. "We'll take the water purifier and the satellite phone."

"I normally carry no gun and the jeeps have no guns but we always have the roadside kit." Cassandra pointed to a large orange bag with yellow reflective tape. "I can't school you in their use, but we have trenching shovels."

"Shovels?" Xander wondered about the need for shovels but he had the wooden handled hardware store gardening shovel in mind.

"When we get back and unpack, I'll show them to you. A dual purpose tool – you can dig with it to free your jeep and you can brain a demon. The handle is light aluminum, the shovel is hard steel. It folds up and you can carry one or two on you. Unfold it and you have the best of sword and baseball bat all in one. We should take them." Cassandra stood up and handed them off.

"If you need guns, I think you lot could break into a gun shop if you need to. The soldiers in this vehicle didn't carry anything you can't get in a well stocked gun shop." Cassandra tapped a camouflaged green bag. "We have knives and army tomahawks in this bag.

Cassandra carefully closed the tailgate and then motioned Xander to ride shotgun.

"I have a few bags of personal items – replacement parts and clothing." She said as she opened the door and adjusted her seat belt. "I may need repairs and my clothing is made to fit me. I'm not sure I could find anything that suits me in a Gap."

"Are your clothes special?" Xander did up his seat belt as Cassandra started the jeep and put it in gear.

"My clothes come in several color themes like you see in this red outfit." Cassandra tugged her gold bordered collar. "I have blue and green and yellow, gray and teal as well. The color doesn't matter." As Cassandra drove down the street she pointed at her back with her free right hand. "The clothes are made to fit me – you could say."

* * *

Buffy had no idea how a merely human intelligence could make something as exceedingly complex as Cassandra. Over the past day, everyone had met the all too human Cassandra but concluded the odd machine wasn't quite_ 'right' _but she was oddly likeable. She made for pleasant company but had no concept of _'human emotions'_ or at least had a problem comprehending them.

Her _'gifts'_ embodied in her ability to predict and her ability as a strategist made her welcome at the Sommer's home. She also had endurance: she needed little and her fuel cells used nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere to extract power. She could operate indefinitely. Once she had read enough to have a good idea what to look look out for; she could stay up all night and quietly stand guard. She gave the household a chance to rest, recover and recuperate. The denizens of the Sommer's house slept better knowing a very intelligent computer stood guard.

Cassandra made no noise as she went from window to window in a cycle only a machine could perform so precisely.

Buffy turned on the kitchen light which made Cassandra wince for a split second.

"I didn't hear you come down the stairs." Cassandra announced. "Did I do something wrong?"

"You have done your duty very well."

Cassandra could wiggle her ears and did so as she turned to speak to Buffy. "I have no sense of smell." Cassandra looked down at the floor for a moment as if to gather her thoughts and then looked to Buffy again. "People say _'it doesn't smell right'_ when something seems out of place or doesn't make sense."

"I can't sleep." Buffy explained to Cassandra. "I'll leave you your work."

"I didn't hear you come down the stairs." Cassandra said again. "I double checked my memory and replayed everything and I find no sound."

"I can be very quiet." Buffy smiled. "Stealthy." She whispered coyly.

"You had no reason to be stealthy." Cassandra looked at Buffy and her eyes whirred quietly. "I think I should warn the others."

"Don't worry, you're tired." Buffy told Cassandra.

Cassandra looked oddly preoccupied. "I can't grow tired. Buffy makes the steps creak and so I can tell its her. She has a certain signature in her step I recognize and so I know I can continue to work."

She also had a deeply engrained need to indulge her curiosity. "What is the purpose of this illusion? I have nothing to offer." Cassandra watched and waited.

"I know you're dead." Buffy said slyly but had her doubts as she studied the precise and pedantic Cassandra. "I can take your form, destroy you and use the their trust in you to infiltrate the group."

"I've already been briefs on your tactics and I wouldn't try making me a doppelganger. I have been told you need to take on the identity of a once living person. I never had a life or soul and my mind consists of software running on a very fast computer. I doubt you could duplicate the kind of brute force algorithms making me_ 'appear to think'_. You have nothing to imitate." Cassandra replied in a tone of utter logic mixed with pride. "I find your words an empty threat. I'm unable to self terminate and you're unable to terminate me."

"I should simply have you destroyed." Buffy slyly smiled. "Have one of my legion leave you smashed and unable to function."

"As an all powerful being I find myself _underwhelmed_ by_ your _intelligence." Cassandra stood in the dim light of the microwave oven display. "You have shown me just how little you understand my nature. You use deception because a human mind can be fooled or manipulated. This explains the illusion of Buffy. I have no mind. I use a set of rules to evaluate the data and seek the most self consistent answer. I have a directive to accurately process information and relay the results."

The fake Buffy walked up to Cassandra. The humans had crafted her well but she lacked a 'smell' an aura and the only thing at all she could see to show Cassandra was functioning was a green glow in the robot's eyes and the low whirring of her eyes focusing in on her. The _First Evil_ had vast knowledge of humans and supernatural creatures yet had Cassandra thought it almost a certain bet she had no knowledge of machines – nothing like Cassandra had existed in the human realm.

Cassandra said three words: "The Cassandra Project works."

Cassandra flew back as a flash overwhelmed her night vision.

"Buffy!?" Cassandra had a piercing voice. "Willow!?"

* * *

_The First Evil_ had met the original Cassandra and computer capable of predicting the future could be a huge advantage to the humans if they believed and trusted its advice.

She had not had to use her direct influence to force the humans to leave. The base holding Cassandra lay above a geothermal hotspot – a dormant volcano. They had tapped this magma chamber for the supply of almost unlimited power it provided but the caldera had begun to show disturbing signs of activity. The engineers and technicians at the base had endured weeks of small quakes directly beneath them which began to grow in intensity. The power plant had a series of steam explosions and toxic gasses had begun to build up near the facility. They decided to evacuate the base but had not taken their equipment.

The affairs of the military had not concerned her although the location of the base was not secret even if the military hid much of what took place behind the fences. The recent increase in geological activity didn't concern her. She had come to California to open the Hellhole not study geology. Given that California had great quakes, volcanoes, landslides, forest fires and floods; she regarded the pending eruption of a volcano an hour's drive away as merely the catastrophe of the day.

The First Evil wondered if she had she had a narrow escape? She used illusions to fool humans but Cassandra came as a sharp warning not to overextend herself or make assumptions about weakness. Human minds had motives, emotional drives, hopes, fears and desires; knowledge of the past of a person helped reveal a way to dupe others into accepting her.

At this moment, _she had bigger fish_ to fry than dealing with an escaped military experiment.

Cassandra had no life force and no mind but was _not a fake_. Whatever worked behind those amber eyes had a complex intellect and extremely fine reasoning but while she looked human; her makers had not given her a human mind but endowed her with the ability to fake enough of human behavior to work with people. Her humanity was nothing more than an interface to allow her to do useful work.

She had not expected Cassandra to be in the slayer house. She had mistaken her for a new potential and had made a mistake.

"Why don't we destroy that machine?" Caleb asked – he wished to demand but had to hold his temper – after all he had a calling to aid the _First Evil_. "If she can see your true nature then she poses threat!"

"Do you know the story of her namesake?" She answered back edgily. "Cassandra was the name of a woman cursed by Apollo to predict the future but be forever doubted." She knew the myth well, yet decided not to bother retelling the story to Caleb. "Our little droid takes that name because the humans have somehow built the ability to forecast the future into her. I admit I'm surprised: I had no idea human technology had advanced this far."

"Why don't you try to kill her?" She said sarcastically as she paced the oak barrels of the old winery cave. "You could torture her and feed off her dark emotions – except she doesn't have any. You could take sadistic joy in her pain – except a machine doesn't feel pain!" Caleb had the cruelty she needed to accomplish her goals but he had a very simple view of the world.

Caleb had no concept of a_ thinking _machine.

"Could I kill her easily?" Caleb asked submissively.

"You could crush her like a doll," she answered back. "but you wouldn't enjoy it at all." Caleb didn't understand the knot of the problem. Cassandra made forecasts bases on mathematics and could predict Caleb's actions and evade them. "She'd likely predict your moves and take the proper actions to evade you. You have nothing of interest to a machine. You pray on the emotional weakness of young women, she has none."

Caleb digested this information as he gave thought to finding this android.

She looked back at Caleb. "I'd like to know more about her capabilities. She had great confidence and proved quite intelligence for a machine – even for a person but I couldn't_ read _her. Very well...see what you can discover about her _but you are not to harm her __just yet_."

Caleb loosened his collar. "May I ask why?"

"_I_ don't know how." _The First Evil_ walked around Caleb. "She has _no_ slayer powers but she does have the ability to predict the moves of her adversaries – we don't want her to figure out all of our moves in advance. We will recover our powers, then proceed as planned."

* * *

Caleb stood in the darkness afforded him under the shade of the large Douglas Fir tree in the back yard of a tree several houses down from the _'Slayer House'_ as he had come to call it. He had staked this spot because he could hide in the dark and go unnoticed.

Cassandra tilted her head.

"You're wanted by the authorities." She spoke loudly but calmly as she stared into the night. "Your chosen alias is _'Caleb' _and you're wanted for at least two killings. The FBI database may need updating."

"Now just how did you know I was here?" Caleb walked out from behind the tree. "You have some of them fancy night vision goggles?"

"Very few defrocked priests have stood under _that_ tree." Cassandra leaned on the railing of the porch. "I didn't know with certainty until you told me."

"How did you see me?" Caleb asked with subdued anger.

Cassandra pointed at her eyes. "As you pointed out, I have an elaborate night vision system capable of easily distinguishing _you_ from the tree." She crossed her arms. "I suspect you'll have a sermon for me otherwise you wouldn't be still wearing your priest's collar? I warn you I have no soul and no interest in things religious or spiritual."

Caleb wondered how this dainty little robot knew so much about his criminal history and realized she had begun to bait him.

"Do you not know how powerful I am?" Caleb replied.

"Neither you or the_ First Evil_ - your boss – have taken time to ask some very important questions." Cassandra never let Caleb leave her green glowing glare. "Why did the humans create a thinking machine? What makes me special? Why did the_ First Evil_ left me _alone_? Why did she warn you that you best leave me alone?"

"I came to meet you." Caleb lied. "You are unique."

"You came to cut me down." Cassandra corrected him. "I came out of a military project called _'Project Cassandra'_ – to call it a secret military project sounds like a _cliche_." Cassandra's expression didn't change.

"You can see the future?" Caleb laughed quietly and sarcastically.

"I see the world, you, that tree, the house as streams of data – numbers – flowing in my brain." Cassandra heard someone come out the front door. "With those numbers I can perform complicated mathematics and with the results I can model the odds of things happening and make solid predictions. My creators designed me with such abilities. Your boss understood this and realized the longer I observed her, the more data I acquired and the more reliable my predictions of her future moves."

"Who are you talking to?" Willow asked as she looked out into the darkness.

"Caleb." Cassandra told Willow. "He came to kill me but he won't succeed."

"I'll get everyone." Willow patted Cassandra's shoulder.

"He took off his shoes and ran off down the street toward the school." Cassandra told Willow. "I said_ he wouldn't succeed_. He didn't expect to have his shoes stuck in a pool of _Five Minute Epoxy_.

* * *

Caleb found his boss smirking in the cavern in the guise of Cassandra.

"I warned you but _you_ have to learn by experience." His boss explained as she walked up to him. "If I had merely ordered you to leave her alone, you'd never understand how powerful she could be."

"She has an odd sense of humor." Caleb growled and hissed as he tore a sharp rock from the ball of his foot. "Such a little girl to be given such powers."

"I had heard of Cassandra but only as rumors of a secret endeavor to build a special kind of computer. My minions told me long ago of this project but technical things bore me. Until last night, I had no idea of the true form of _'Cassandra'_." _The First Evil_ advised Caleb. "Until I went to see for myself, I didn't understand that it had taken the form of a teenage girl."

"She cost me a pair of expensive shoes." Caleb asked pensively.

His boss circled around him. "She _could_ have killed you."

"That little girl?" Caleb bellowed. "_That little girl_ humiliated me."

"Is that worse than killing you?" The First Evil paced around an oak wine aging barrel. "She sent you a message: _she can see your future_. Lucky for you, she has no knowledge of your weaknesses. If she knew you could die once your body was destroyed then she'd set those events up."

"You can appear to her – break her mind." Caleb rubbed his bare feet.

"I can appear like her because she's dead but I can't read a mind that doesn't exist." His boss looked down at her hands. "The humans poured much of their craftsmanship into her. Not beautiful as a woman, not attractive but cute and delicate." She felt the gold trim of the robe. "I know you want to choke the life out of her but that won't work – she doesn't breathe."

"How do we destroy her?" Caleb asked earnestly.

"We don't." She answered back. "She was right. She is _too_ alien."

"She poses a risk to you."

"One such robot doesn't pose much of a risk - yet." His boss said with a wag of her finger. "The military left her behind and that makes me think they have a copy, a backup, a prototype. She's a computer and so you could take a rock and pound her skull to glass dust and still not _'kill'_ her. She exists as software – the body merely allows her to operate in the world. Computers have backups and the humans connect them together. She must have flagged you as a serial killer by tapping one of the human computer networks. You'd try to kill her and she'd simply have to find a computer host to escape into and wait. I imagine such a machine has a backup already. Once in the 'net she'd find some way to blow you into dust." She turned to Caleb slowly and gave the command. "We understand humans, not computers. Study her, but leave her unharmed for now."

"See if you can find out more about what makes her function." She advised dismissively. "I find myself curious now."

* * *

"The man I saw goes by the alias Caleb." Cassandra said confidently. "He's a defrocked priest wanted by the FBI for the murder of at least two women."

Willow had her laptop sitting on the coffee table. She sat next to Cassandra as she leaned over and entered commands into it.

"How do you know?" Xander asked Cassandra.

"The church doesn't often vet the candidates for the priesthood." Cassandra could see Xander looking at her – people did that to her a lot. "A shortage of young men who wish to work for them given the lack of benefits and human contact."

"How did you find out about_ Caleb_?" Xander asked again with emphasis.

"When I first saw him, once I had enough data, I queried law enforcement databases and they all agreed on his identity." Cassandra put her hands on her thighs and then leaned forward with her head in her hands. "Willow has set up the wireless so I can stream the video."

"Ready." Willow announced.

"I can't promise you'll see much: night vision systems are often devoid of much detail." Cassandra blinked three times. "You're going to see a recording of the raw data which may prove confusing."

'Negotiating with host...' The text flowed through a command window and then the media player came up.

The monochromatic green video made Buffy wonder about how Cassandra could possibly make sense of the world through such a limited set of colors. The image bounced up and down and a set of cross-hairs locked in on a green blur under the outline of a tree. The conversation had much more fidelity than the video and went exactly as Cassandra had reported. A green pie chart like circle appeared with text and histograms as Cassandra worked to identify him.

Andrew had nothing but admiration for the speed of Cassandra's lightning fast processing core. The fastest computers lagged to analyze video and audio in real time and very often failed. Cassandra locked in on the 'smear' and rapidly built up a human form using statistical odds. He saw a blotch, a smear, a gleam, a glimmer and all in a hideous green. Cassandra found a serial killer named 'Caleb'.

"Very few people hang out anywhere here at night." Cassandra said as the video came to its end. She cut in with an image of the man and his rap sheet. "I came up with his identity given the visual data and the voice records the FBI has."

"Why did he come here?" Buffy asked Cassandra.

Cassandra looked up. She gave a look of deep thought for a moment as she sat on the couch.

Willow watched in fascination as_ 'Cassandra' _began to peer into the future.

Cassandra's look became more attached again and her eyes focused on Buffy with a soft whir.

"_The First Evil _needs muscle." Cassandra slapped her knees. "She can't actually _do_ anything in the physical world. She plays mind games and preys on human weaknesses and makes use of elaborate mind games that play off the vulnerabilities of people." Cassandra sounded almost sad. "She needs someone to do the violent work real murder and mayhem require. Caleb makes a perfect choice. His record makes for an interesting lesson in how 'wetware' can go very badly wrong."

* * *

"Andrew is your name?"

Cassandra looked to the nervous boy bothering her. She had no concept of being bothered but the nervous blond teen with the camera was teaching her. She had had this boy tailing her since he got up and had a camera fully charged. Cassandra had no concept of excitement and was at a loss to understand why her wanderings through the house engaged the boy's interest.

"Don't you have anything better _to do_?" Cassandra asked in her typical level manner. "You've got a week or a little bit more left to live. Do you want to spend you're last days tailing me with that camera?"

"I've never met a cyborg."

Cassandra pushed herself onto a sitting position on the kitchen counter. "Indeed?" She made herself comfortable "What about _Data_ from _Star Trek __the __Next Generation_?"

"Brent Spiner played him – he was an actor." Andrew pined. "He was an android – he was entirely artificial. You have human skin and you're real."

"Such subtlety." Cassandra complained. "Do you mean to imply Brent Spiner was not real or that he wasn't a real android?"

This required Andrew to scratch his head. Cassandra spoke with refined perfection, came so close to emulating human behavior; yet on rare occasions, she lost the flow or mucked up something implied by context but not spoken. She came close to passing the _Unrestricted Turing Test_ but given time, she revealed her machine nature.

"Do you have to sit on the kitchen counter?" Anya complained as she opened the fridge. "Aren't you perfect and without emotion or something?"

Anya pulled the fridge door open.

"I find the variety of birth control pills in the fridge extraordinary." Cassandra told Anya . "Given the high chance of the human race dying out, is birth control a good policy right now?"

"Who drank all the orange juice?" Anya complained bitterly.

Cassandra noticed Andrew zooming in on Anya.

"Why do you need that?" Cassandra asked the nervous Andrew. "I record all."

Andrew had a bit of a crush on Cassandra.

Andrew gulped. "You are so finely made and you have the the blue uniform on. I find you very beautiful."

"Thank you for your complement." Cassandra told Andrew. "This doesn't address my question about the camera you have trained on us."

Cassandra waited and tapped her finger on the counter.

"Can you feel attraction to another person?" Andrew fidgeted.

She looked into the fridge. "In the _'need for birth control'_ way or the way _'the fridge magnets have stuck to the fridge'_ way?"

"He means in the way one human likes another." Anya poked her head in the fridge. "He wants to ask you out."

"No." Cassandra spoke as if closing a door. "I fake behaving like a human like a computer model of the weather fakes the real thing. My design comes out of a need to make me easy to interact with. I have no real body and no needs for human companionship. I have no romantic needs. I think you had better look elsewhere."

"Well that settles that." Anya closed the fridge door. "We're out of orange juice and Andrew has no date for the prom – if he has a prom."

"Put it on the list – the orange juice not the prom date." Cassandra could almost sound irked. "I put the whiteboard on the fridge with the pen so people could remind me of the things we need as it seems I have begun to become the housekeeper at Sommer's School for the Slayer."

"Won't you grow old?" Andrew spoke in a quivering voice.

"With any luck, I grow old but the odds of our survival seem about fifty fifty." Cassandra gave her odds on the success of their mission. "If I grow old, I'll grow old alone."

"How lonely." Anya said as she close the fridge. "You have a dark view of the world."

"One has to _feel _lonely." Cassandra said plaintively.

"I see." Andrew apologized.

* * *

Cassandra brushed her robes. "I had hoped to escape the end of the world. Things have come out against me." She a few habits and she brushed her robes when unsure of what to say to a human. "I hope my little life will not end in a _deafening crescendo_ but with a_ niente_."

"I find myself constantly shocked by the sheer size of the spiders in _this basement_." Cassandra stood on the stairs in her fine blue uniform with the black vest and silver trim and held onto the mail. "I did some digging at the local museum. Did you know Sunnydale used to have a Japanese internment camp where the Target is now. They didn't inter Japanese prisoners of War – odd. They interred Americans of Japanese descent. The same policy wasn't applied to the Germans or their European allies. Anyhow, I have the mail." She waved her hand with the mail in it.

"Did we get anything worth opening?" Buffy asked curtly to head off one of Cassandra's mind melting rants.

"Would you look at the size of that one!" Cassandra pointed at a corner of the basement as she came down the stairs. "The phone bill has arrived."

"Do you have any fighting skills?" Buffy asked Cassandra.

"I can change toner in any photocopier but I can't fight. I can use most four letter words very well." Cassandra twirled a letter in her hand. "This came for you from your dentist." She held out a letter.

Buffy grabbed Cassandra and held her arm behind her back.

"I didn't read your mail." Cassandra complained. "I've had the duty of getting the mail and newspaper when they arrive. Did you decide to kill the messenger? Do you hate your dentist? That isn't my problem. Breaking my arm _hardly_ puts my talents to full use. I can't offer you any combat training."

"I have you pinned. _How do you get free?_" Buffy menacingly spoke in Cassandra's ear.

Cassandra smelled faintly of plastic and electronics. Buffy didn't wish to hurt the little android but she didn't want her to naively blunder into trouble with no defenses. She wished to know if the 'Little Princess' as some potentials nicknamed her, had any combat skills at all.

"Mom!" Cassandra yelled out. "_Buffy's picking on me._"

Snickers went around the room.

"How to get _myself_ out _of_ your grasp." Cassandra dryly dissected the problem. "You can greatly overpower me and I'm not _physically_ strong. I can't cause harm to you due to safeguards in my programming so we have to take a new approach to this kind of problem."

Cassandra played the odds constantly. Buffy had greater physical strength but Cassandra could out wait anyone. Cassandra squirmed and in a flash had her freedom.

"You gave me a chance because you loosened your grip." Cassandra explained to Buffy. "I may be a pacifist but I'm not stupid."

Buffy had begun to respect that little cyborg. While dainty Cassandra barely stood five feet tall and had a charming and kind nature but was frighteningly intelligent and Buffy wasn't surprised that she had been outwitted by her.

Cassandra held up her hand and examined her finger. A pale blue milky liquid oozed out and she blew on it.

"Get a bandage." Buffy told her and grabbed the letter from the dentist.

* * *

Cassandra walked down the aisle of the _St. Bartholomew Catholic Church_.

The brick church was one of the first buildings of any size built in the area by the first settlers and still stood out as a landmark in the small city of Sunnydale. The church was directly across from the new high school but after seven in the evening, all was quiet.

The wooden floor squeaked under Cassandra's feet. A blood red carpet went from the front entrance of the church to the back between the rows of pews. She wondered why the old pioneers had felt a need to make the interior so squalid.

The candles in the overhead lights had long been replaced by feeble halogen lights casting a dim tungsten glow over the inside of the old church. Cassandra had great night vision and decent enough vision in daylight but her vision system didn't perfectly adjust the color balance and so the dark wooden floor and the pews took on a pallid green tinge she couldn't adjust out.

"How are you tonight – miss?" An elderly priest with gentle blue eyes and gray hair gently asked the odd looking girl as she walked down the center aisle between the two rows of pews.

"I'm fine. My name is Cassandra." Cassandra placed her hands behind her back and faced the priest as he worked his way along the pews replacing the _'prayer request'_ forms. "I have a question for you."

Cassandra followed him as he worked along the pews.

"I'm looking for a man who has an unhealthy interest in religion." Cassandra reached into her robes and took out a folded color printout of Caleb's police blotter. "Have you ever seen this man?"

"He looks familiar." The man held his glasses to his face and then let them fall. "I saw him at an Evensong service last week. Wanted by the FBI you say? Are you with the police?"

"No...but I recognized him and wish to do my duty." Cassandra folded up the print out. "Do you know anything about him?"

"I have only seen him at the odd service. We've never spoken." The old priest smiled. "You can have a look at the guest book in the Narthex and you'll see we have many visitors."

"Thank you." Cassandra folded up the image.

This church had a straight line view of the Sommer's house and that made it of interest to Caleb.

"May I look around?" She asked the priest. "I have an interest in the history of this place."

"We make our doors open to all." The priest nodded.

She hadn't lied. She had an interest in the recent history of the place.

Caleb had an interest in this place and Cassandra found herself drawn to the belfry as it had a direct line view of the Sommer's house.

The belfry was a brick room with screened windows to let the bells toll but keep the bats out. Ropes with leather grips dangled from holes in the wooden roof above her. She had not bothered to switch on the lights: she could see plenty of detail through her night vision. Caleb could have found no other place to hide and spy and as Cassandra looked out over the neighborhood she saw their house in clear detail.

They had a problem.

* * *

Cassandra wasn't what powerful vampires or demons expected or even looked out for. She had seen vampires lurking in the shadows in the evening but they took no more interest in her than in a mailbox or traffic light. She was a creature with toxic blood so vampires blithely ignored her.

Willow and Buffy didn't like Cassandra to go out alone.

Cassandra had logic on her side. As an artificial life form with blood blended from silicon oil and a mix of fluorocarbon compounds, something akin to slow acting adhesives for clotting and chemical stabilizers, she tasted awful and was probably toxic. Spike had seen her bleed from a cut and described the light blue liquid as utterly revolting. Everyone else noticed it had a faint chemical odor. Willow noticed it became much like fast acting glue since she had stuck her fingers together with Cassandra's blue blood while examining the cut she received at Buffy's hands.

Buffy worried because Cassandra had no instincts. She had an artificial mind shaped by programmers not by the need for survival.

"I have to conclude we're seeing a leveling off of activity." Cassandra told Giles as she met him at the door. "I haven't seen vampires or demons around recently. I can't explain it except that our enemy is regrouping, perhaps strengthening her forces."

"Buffy doesn't want you roaming the neighborhood at night." Giles held the door open as Cassandra pulled her knapsack off her shoulders. "She thinks you're in far too much danger."

Cassandra mulled this for a moment. "I'm in considerable physical danger. Vampires don't pose much of a threat unless directed to kill me. Other things of demonic origins can easily kill me. Bringers could net me and present me to The First One." Cassandra walked into the living room and placed her knapsack on the coffee table and then began explaining to Giles her findings. "Things have begun to move quickly because the increase in vampire population shows _The First Evil_ has begun recruiting muscle to crush us. She tried once and failed but she has Caleb at her disposal and he hasn't yet moved against us. He will. The First One's plan has a precision about it: crush all human resistance here: us, the potential slayers and then claim a foothold and move on."

Buffy leaned against the door. "We have had you in our midst for long enough that you know many of our secrets and plans. If you fell into the hands of_ The First Evil_; she could extract what you know and use it against us."

"She can't manipulate a computer intelligence by deception or torture." Cassandra countered. "She can imitate my look since I'm already dead but she can't imitate my software so she'd give herself away."

"You can't lie." Buffy replied severely. Buffy had grown increasingly irritated and concerned with Cassandra's appearance overconfidence in the face of grave danger and decided to remind Cassandra of her own weaknesses. "She just has to ask you and you'd tell her." She looked down on Cassandra. "The forces out their will not ignore you once they know this weakness – the Bringers act on First Evil command. They can't read your silicon brain, download your files or read your emotions but they don't care – they have their duty."

"I'm almost surprised." Cassandra had not considered this a problem but Buffy had identified a very real problem with Cassandra's nature. She had heard of efforts to make sophisticated artificial intelligences 'lie' or conceal information but it never worked. The systems crashed or the software became utterly unreliable and useless and so computers like Cassandra had limited usefulness in military applications. Buffy had made a point: Cassandra could not keep secrets.

* * *

Anya thought Cassandra's choice of clothes a fashion mistake. The android looked like some fictional oriental princess – the silver, gold or copper colored trim on her long trench coat like vest spoke of baroque excess.

She sat at the kitchen table and tried to talk fashion with Cassandra

Cassandra began to brew another pot of coffee and prepared to explain how her solar charger worked.

"The black vest looks like a fashion statement," she began cautiously, "but they're essential for my functioning."

"All very nice." Anya said dismissively as she waited for Cassandra to make another pot of coffee.

"The black vest acts as a solar panel and also engages in photosynthesis." Cassandra waited at the coffee machine as it hissed and sputtered. "The power runs my computer systems and the photosynthesis feeds my biological systems."

"Shouldn't you be green?" Anya watched impatiently as Cassandra poured out a hot mug of coffee. "Plants are green – they do that photo thing."

"Black absorbs more much more light and so I get more energy and food." Cassandra placed a mug in front of Anya. "They designed me for maximum autonomy so I could function on the surface without the need for constant supplying."

Anya reached for the sugar packets Cassandra kept in a white bowl in the middle of the table. Cassandra had become a kind of housekeeper and Anya put up with Cassandra because keeping the house clean wasn't something she wished to do.

"I have a kind of fuel cell that can use ethanol if I need power in a pinch but so far I've never needed it." Cassandra sat down across from Cassandra. "I suppose humans take their clothing so seriously because they look so ugly naked?"

Cassandra had no soul. Anya knew this for a face: no machine had one. Lots of things could have them. The problem for the _Buffyverse_ at large was that with her keen observations, cutting humor and injunctions to protect life; Cassandra simulated a soul using software.


	2. Chapter 2

**Buffy and Cassandra at the End of Days**

**Cassandra and the Potentials**

"We're all going to die?" Cassandra approached Buffy slowly as Cassandra sorted the mail. "I missed the happy part of that lecture." Cassandra dropped the mail onto the kitchen table almost appearing frustrated by circumstances. "Is this the first in a series of lectures? Tomorrow – estate planning?"

"You _don't_ think we could all die?" Buffy stood next to the coffee maker Cassandra carefully tended.

"I'm a machine. I'm dead already but if you mean that I might cease to function? _Yes,_ I have thought about that. It's all too big for me." Cassandra explained to Buffy. "I do the household tasks and keep busy but you speak of it as a certainty – I haven't yet made that pronouncement."

Buffy poured herself a cup of the carefully brewed coffee Cassandra had made. Cassandra didn't express emotions although Buffy had no doubt the girl had them. Cassandra took pride in her computing power and had a great sense of purpose when given difficult problems and she gave the impression of an active intellectual life.

"Am I intruding on your territory?" Buffy asked seriously. "Did I insult your delicate cybernetic pride?"

Buffy had discovered how to play along with Cassandra. Half the time, Cassandra did her thing almost invisibly and quietly but while the cyborg never admitted to having pride; she showed pride in the subtle ways she chose her words. Cassandra considered herself the best computer on Earth; the acme of logic and the _'Princess of Prediction'_. The potentials had chosen to nickname her _'The Princess'_ as a tribute to her fussy ways, neat appearance and dainty looks. She had overheard Buffy lecturing the potentials but because she lacked the ability to properly read humans; she made an insult out of a warning. Cassandra must have taken it as a prediction and one her _mighty mathematical mind_ had not made.

"I felt no insult. I think it a tad abrupt to make such pronouncements this early." Cassandra had no emotion in her voice but she cleaned lint off her black robe when nervous or a tad insulted. "I can't see any real benefit in scaring young girls."

At first Buffy had a deep distrust of Cassandra. Cassandra was a cyborg – a kind of robot - human artificial hybrid and artificial beings had proven dangerous in the past. In the past few days, Buffy had come to realize the other robots like the Buffybot sought to imitate human behavior and emotions. Cassandra looked like a human but her eyes and her mode of dress made it clear she was a very odd looking one. She made no effort to act as a human or fit in. She reminded Buffy of the _HAL 9000_ computer in _2001 A Space Odyssey_ and the sequel. Cassandra had conceptual problems with deep issues such as fear or death or evil and this made some serious discussions about recent events an immense frustration.

The little robot only left the house to run errands such as shopping and Buffy had accompanied her on shopping trips. Cassandra shopped and proved an utter pain on a shopping trip. Buffy found her obsessive, detail oriented and she loved electronics. Buffy had let her walk down to the church across from the school and Cassandra left and returned precisely on time and did exactly as she had stated. She had passed that test and Buffy decided against letting Cassandra wander alone at night. Cassandra was unique: she was the only artificial being Buffy had seen who had no desire to harm them and she had a certain way about her that made her endearing. Her computing power also made her a powerful ally in the upcoming fight.

"You don't know them," Buffy took a long pull on her coffee, "the enemies we face."

"Does that matter?" Cassandra paced the room. "I merely thought it premature to make such pronouncements before you had consulted with me. Currently I lack sufficient information to make that prediction."

Buffy waited in silence. Cassandra always spoke her_ 'mind' _but moved between being a simpleton and a god. While smarter than most people, Cassandra lacked the little voice in her head to tell her the following would sound _'idiotic'_ or_ 'odd'_. Part of Cassandra's charm was her ability to swing between speaking profound truths about life and saying something funny, sarcastic, dark or wildly out of line.

"When I know with certainty that we're going to die; I'll let you all know." Cassandra brushed her fine black vest as her usual show of nerves. Buffy wondered if Cassandra could care if she sounded like a simpleton. "Given the way Fate works; at the point where we're certain to die, we'll all likely have no doubts."

Buffy had to keep from laughing. She didn't want coffee dripping out of her nose.

"What do you mean?" Buffy found this question came up a good deal with Cassandra.

Cassandra tidied up the napkins in their wooden holder. "You're the Slayer. You have a kind of authority I don't have and so the girls in your command hang on your words. I think it best not to speak of things like death until I have certainty. At that point, I probably can't do anything helpful except record all your last wills and testaments. Death doesn't come as a surprise when you see the engines drop off the plane. At that point, predicting certain death would be redundant and I couldn't be heard over the screams of the other passengers."

* * *

Cassandra watched Buffy and the Potential Slayers leave but barely paid their departure any attention. She hoped for a quiet evening of _'music'_ as she lay on her back on the couch with her CD player and a few choice recordings of Mahler from the public library. She didn't complain about the crowded conditions in the house but she found a need for some space to relax – if that was the proper word for it. She needed time to fill her head with the digital streams of dead composers but as a tribute to her forethought; she lay on the couch in a manner that allowed her to see the dining room and even as far as the kitchen. She slipped on the head set and began to listen to _Mahler's Sixth Symphony_ – a complex piece of century old orchestral music that spanned two compact discs.

She looked utterly at ease as Willow and Xander walked past her. She couldn't hear the conversation and decided this was for the best. Faint and tinny pieces of melody floated up and went away as the music surged forward. Cassandra noticed them as well but they appeared occupied in some kind of task and she wished to be left out of the fun at the moment._ 'I don't want to be implicated in this.'_ was the directive she followed.

Cassandra watched them assemble in a group around the dining room. Xander, Andrew, Anya, Willow and Dawn as they began placing items in a circular arrangement.

She forecast a bunch of unfortunate bungling with her stuck out in front of the house for hours.

"May I ask what you are trying to do?" Cassandra pressed pause on the player. "Should I go down to the basement and listen to music?" She waved her CD player in her hand. "Do I need to ready the bomb shelter?" She decided to watch the happenings for insurance purposes.

"We're casting a spell to find potential slayers." Willow explained as she fussed over the placement of items. "We need to find out where they might be."

Cassandra sat up. "A spell to find potential slayers?" She examined the contents of the cups, pots and plates on the table but they made no sense to her although she had to speculate on how much that snakeskin was worth. "Will this supernatural inquiry cause any problems for me?" She held up her black CD player. "I'll have to admit I see this ending badly."

"You can go back to listening to music if you want." Xander told Cassandra so Cassandra closed her eyes and resumed playing her CD.

"The room is filling with smoke or sulfurous vapors!" Cassandra shouted at the group in the dining room. She opened her eyes because they had begun to water badly. She had no sense of smell or taste but the pain in her eyes meant the air had begun to become bad. A glowing ball of gas in the living room had begun to swirl around.

Cassandra noted the panic in the room.

Dawn flew across the room and the glowing amber flames of something Cassandra couldn't comprehend pinned her to the door.

"I heard you guys mumbling about the spell misfiring." Cassandra tried to shout over the rush of Anya and Willow, Andrew and Xander trying to bring the situation under control. "The goat caught fire?"

Cassandra sat up. "Is this another attempt to bring people together?"

"Cassandra...please." Willow said quickly.

"Dawn!" Willow yelled.

"She gained air time." Cassandra explained as she disconnected her earphones. "Should I see if I can raise the authorities on the phone?" She asked politely. "I'll make the call and you can tell me what you'll need to rescue the situation."

"Can you go outside under the tree and wait!" Anya yelled.

Cassandra grabbed her CD player and left the house and sat under the tree.

"I didn't predict _this_." Cassandra looked at Willow and Anya. "I have an obligation to warn you if something like this could happen. I have no sense of smell so if that is an issue then you are better able to judge the hazard than me."

"Dawn_ is_ the next slayer." Willow told Cassandra as they all stood under the old chestnut tree. "Why didn't you tell us. I thought you could make accurate predictions." Willow had a shaky voice and Cassandra wondered what had gone wrong – no one appear injured.

Cassandra tapped her foot on the lawn with the CD player and headset in her left hand. "I don't see the future. I see the mathematics."

"She's next to useless." Anya threw up her hands. "We have a robot who can't do anything."

"I hardly think abuse will help us." Cassandra drew her regal robes around her. "I didn't foresee this. I will admit that I've encountered many new things I can't even begin to process. I still can't see Dawn as the next slayer. I just can't see the maths adding up."

"The spell pointed her out as the next slayer." Willow argued. "_Do you know_ that means a short and brutal life full of conflict and death."

"Even you admit a spell _can go_ wrong." Cassandra countered. "Dawn and I have never spoken much but this _'slayer thing'_ doesn't fit my model of the Universe."

"Why?" Anya asked.

"We have a house full of potentials and I've read the slayer lore." Cassandra looked up at the tree and back at the group. "None are related in any close way. This tells me the _Slayer Selection Lottery_ isn't genetic." Cassandra paused for a moment to let her inquisitors digest her reasoning. "I have never noticed a genetic pattern in past slayers. Nothing like the line of queens from mother to daughter or some such thing. The chances are so remote I have to conclude your spell is wrong or misdirected."

Anya held onto her urge to punch Cassandra.

Willow knew better. Punching Cassandra would do no good as Cassandra knew how to predict punches.

"Well..go to the high school?" Cassandra had decided they would get her advice whether they listened or not. "Find her first and you can argue with me later."

"You...stay here!" Anya commanded. "Don't tell Buffy."

Cassandra leaned against the chestnut tree.

"Do you ever have trouble with humans...aside from the chainsaw thing I mean."

* * *

"This tree has not had much to say to me." Cassandra told Buffy as the potential slayers and their teacher arrived back home. "My last command wasn't rescinded so I can't tell you something. Things have calmed down since then with the arrival of new potential slayer and the revelation that you're sister Dawn wasn't – I can't get you past that until Anya rescinds her orders."

Buffy pushed Cassandra ahead of her and the android complied with protests. Cassandra's heavy robe had a soft almost velvet feel to it and Buffy found it surprising such a functional piece of clothing could feel luxurious.

"Anya told me to stay here, do you outrank her?" Cassandra had to remind the humans that she was a computer at inconvenient times such as this. Cassandra didn't respond to threats under the conditions of such a lock up and so Buffy had to find Anya to_ 'undo'_ the command.

"I can shove you with little effort so 'resistance is futile'. Anya is _an idiot_ and you should ignore much of what she says." Buffy complained. "Let's find Anya."

Anya rubbed her eyes as Buffy kicked her.

"You gave her the command not to tell me anything." Buffy held up Cassandra as Anya rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "I found her under the tree in the front yard and she told me she couldn't tell me anything about Dawn because you told her not to."

"That droid is demented." Anya slid her legs off the bed and spoke quietly to avoid waking anyone else in the other rooms. "What did I tell you to do?"

"We couldn't tell Buffy about Dawn." Cassandra replied dutifully. "You told me to hang out by the tree."

"Go ahead and tell her." Anya waved her hands. "Do you mean you've been standing under the tree all this time? It must be one in the morning."

"Twelve fifty eight and thirty seconds." Cassandra precisely intoned. "As of the beginning of this sentence."

"We will begin with Willow and the accident?" Cassandra queried. "I can tell by your gritted teeth you don't want that level of detail. The people you left behind cast a spell that appeared to tell them the next slayer was Dawn. Dawn found out and got upset – the job of the slayer has a statistically low life span – medical insurance is costly. She didn't turn out to be the slayer and the spell really keyed off of another girl."

"Okay – quiet please." Buffy told Cassandra. "I'll talk to Dawn."

"Keep Anya company." She told Cassandra.

"What did _I_ do wrong?" Anya complained.

"Shall I explain the structure of _Mahler's Sixth Symphony_?" Cassandra asked Anya.

* * *

Cassandra puttered around the house and cleaned up as best she could.

Willow followed her around and apologized for the magic misfire. Cassandra advised her this was not necessary as no real harm was done.

"At least you don't handle plutonium. A Canadian scientist working for the Manhattan Project during the Second World War made plutonium go critical during a lab demonstration. All those in the lab died painful deaths. Evidently uncontrolled fission is bad for living things – not sure about controlled fission." Cassandra had no hint of irritation in her voice but the smart person would have taken this level of abusive sarcasm as her best expression of that emotion. "I put all this effort to keeping the level of entropy to a manageable level and have discovered this probably constitutes some kind of futile quest."

Willow understood Cassandra had verbally cut her down.

Molly looked confused by the concept of this odd girl.

"I haven't been able to use the bathroom this morning." Molly spoke to Willow as she trailed behind Cassandra. "I need to get ready to go to school."

"We have two bathrooms and I know they're not enough." Willow apologized. "This house wasn't built to be a hostel."

"Andrew spends an unhealthy amount of time in the upstairs bathroom with a video camera. He causes many of the long waits for the bathroom." Cassandra adjusted the salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen table. "I have no idea how to solve this problem of the human condition."

"So you're_ like_ a domestic robot?" Molly tried to make casual conversation with Cassandra. "You look so human and real."

"I _am_ real." Cassandra stood up regally. Even at full height, Cassandra was short and not much of a presence. "I do not do domestic duty as a matter of design like some kind of floor polisher. I have little else to do so I keep the house in order."

"Sorry...I didn't mean to insult you." Molly had the distinct feeling some kind of insult had taken place and no one had ever briefed her on being polite to robots. Cassandra was quite believable as a human except for her lack of emotion and calm attitude to everything and her eyes which never seemed to look directly at you or blink.

"I saw no insult. I am an artificially intelligent robot with a powerful computer designed to make predictions and model complex systems." Cassandra explained as she wiped the table and her ears twitched. "I heard the bathroom door on the first floor open up."

* * *

"Pity Cassandra because no one believed her." Cassandra in her green themed uniform greeted Anya in the morning. Cassandra had a copy of _The Hockey News_ in her hands in preparation to read it.

"For a machine with no soul or emotions, you have a very good grasp of sarcasm." Anya complained to Cassandra but thought it best to avoid insulting the sensitive robot. "We were wrong to ignore your advice. Do we have any juice?"

Cassandra sat on the counter and opened her magazine. "We may have run low because someone left me idle by the tree in the front yard so I didn't have a chance to shop yesterday evening but I believe we have some orange juice left."

"Did you know I once was a vengeance demon?" Anya looked through the fridge. "I went by the name Anyanka."

"I _did_ know this." Cassandra sat on the counter with her face buried in the magazine. "The juice is in the jug on the second shelf in the door."

"You aren't the only one new to the human world." Anya said sternly. "I used to have awesome powers and you're not listening to me are you?"

Cassandra shook her head. "I have paid attention to every word – where you're going with this is beyond me."

"With all the bringers and the demons out there and this being the possible end of the world, we should try to get along." Anya pulled out the orange juice and began looking for a glass in the cupboards. "Just saying _you know_."

"I don't actually_ know_." Cassandra tilted her head. "I know the morning is cloudy because I can see that and it is now seven minutes past nine in the morning. I guess you want to make sure I have no grudges _about the five hours you left me under the tree outside the front door last night _but I can't hold grudges." Cassandra pointed to the cupboard where she put the glasses without looking up. "You'll find clean glasses in there."

"I hate it when you do that." Anya plucked a glass from the shelf. "I feel like you're intruding in my mind."

"What did she do?" Buffy entered the kitchen dressed in blue pajamas and pink bunny slippers.

"She guesses what everyone will do next." Anya pointed at the girl absorbed in _The Hockey News_.

"Not to worry, I made another pot of coffee a few minutes ago." Cassandra murmured.

"Thanks." Buffy found the coffee maker bubbling away and hissing as it made the third pot of many for the day. "She knows where everything goes in the kitchen because she put it there."

Cassandra cared for the kitchen in her precise,_'__place glasses in a row spaced equally down to the last micron'_ way. Buffy had come to find sleeping past seven in the morning difficult in recent days and found Cassandra's dainty presence on the counter quite comforting in the way watching an anime character of a girl reading _The Hockey News_ was _'odd'_ in a cute way.

Buffy watched the machine hiss and steam as the carafe filled up.

"I make the best guesses at the sorts of things people living here wish to have." Cassandra explained slowly from behind the magazine. "You drink orange juice and always leave the glass on the counter or the table where it makes those dirty rings. Andrew drinks milk but can't open the top of the carton without ripping it off or opening it up on the _'illegal'_ side. He has eaten two jumbo boxes of Shreddies in four days. People have predictable habits, and I have observed and adjusted my conduct accordingly."

"I don't want anyone outside after sunset." Buffy held up the carafe of coffee and Cassandra pointed to the upper right cupboard. "I could make that a command for you - Cassandra." Buffy picked out a nice large blue mug. "Bringers and demons and vampires lurk in the shadows of this town so if someone tells you to stay outside, you have my permission to ignore them."

Cassandra put down the magazine. "I can comply."

* * *

Spike continued to find Cassandra very odd.

She had no life and if he were one of the _'uninformed'_ vampires wandering the dark places; he'd pay as much attention to her as he did to a car or a trash can. Spike's keen sense of smell could track humans and he relied on scent much more than he ever realized. He could smell any human approaching him downwind but Cassandra could sneak up on him and constantly did so.

Buffy had called her _'frighteningly intelligent'_. Cassandra had a really fast computer for a brain. _'Thinking'_ if Cassandra did _think_, took place in billionths of a second, in the time it took light or electrons to travel a few inches. Cassandra might have a thousand thoughts in the time it took a single thought to boil across a single neuron in a biological brain.

Spike had the fast reflexes of a predator and he had decided to test these lightning fast reflexes against the doll known as Cassandra. He didn't intend to hurt her but he had to see what made her such an opponent in Buffy's opinion.

She had agreed to this but warned him; he might find the outcome humiliating.

Buffy came home from work and heard a loud crunch from the basement.

"Spike wasn't stupid enough to take on Cassandra?" She came down the stairs and found the potentials watching Spike extract his head from the concrete wall of the basement.

Cassandra looked calm and pleased with herself.

Anya had that_ 'I told you so' _look on her face.

Several scuff marks on the basement wall told Buffy this had happened more than once.

"That girl reads minds." A dazed Spike shook his finger at the neat as a pin, regal looking girl who could almost crack a smile. "She can read the minds of the undead as well as the living!" Spike looked quite put out to have a young mouse of a girl raise no fists and yet soundly send him out of control into the basement walls.

Buffy looked at Cassandra. Cassandra was a computer and a proud one. She took pride in being precise and correct and Buffy understood she could justify letting Spike beat himself senseless if she wished to make her point. _'As long as no one lost an eye'_ as the old saying went. Buffy had discovered yelling at her did no good: Cassandra had a certain inability to judge human emotion and she had her stubborn, fussy ways and she protected her pride. Buffy also had come to respect her dark wit and that sarcasm which cut to the bone.

"Okay Cassandra...stop fighting with Spike." Buffy issued the command.

"What did _you_ hope to prove?" Buffy pushed through the audience of young girls toward Spike.

"The potentials need to know how to deal with an enemy that can see their every move." Spike smiled weakly as he stood up. "Cassandra can read minds."

"I have no such ability but in a combat situation; I can predict most outcomes." Cassandra preached. "I have to remind you all not to confuse correct guesses with insight."

Buffy saw on the faces of the potential slayers a kind of dread – not born of fear of the demonic but of the didactic. Cassandra had a very well documented tendency to deliver long theoretical and philosophical lectures on computer science, the theory of mind and logic. She had _'technically'_ graduated with a doctorate in computer science from MIT and Berkeley. The degrees existed in her complex software but the real world result wound up as a lecture on some horrid branch of mathematics or computer science.

"I have the ability to simulate a _'mind'_." Cassandra began slowly. "I use this simulation software to predict what other minds might do and anticipate them." She looked to Buffy who wore a stern 'not more of this' expression but Cassandra continued. "You have the same ability because you've spent eons in the battle of predator and prey evolving the skills to figure out what someone else or something else has planned. I can figure out where Spike plans to move and I get numbers – odds that rate where he will go, what he will do. I can then simply_ not be_ where he will end up. You have feelings, intuitions and gut reactions which are just as effective."

"But you're so fast." Molly raised her hand and interjected.

Cassandra patted her robes. "Thank you."

Buffy understood this compliment as feeding her pride. Cassandra was fast but in an odd way unknown to humans. She was by no means the fastest runner in the group, her physical endurance was not nearly as good as most of the girls. Buffy knew this had something to do with her inability to use adrenaline and her inability to call on her _'lungs'_ to deliver more oxygen. Yet when she needed to move, she could command her small body to move short distances in a flash; like a grasshopper and that unexpected flash of motion was _'freaky'_ and_ 'unsettling'_.

"She isn't that bloody fast." Spike spoke out as he shook his head. "She can't move as fast as I can." His heightened senses had noticed she moved as fast as any ordinary girl but the time from when she saw him in an ambush and took the correct action in no time at all. "As a bloody computer in drag, she can think a thousand times faster."

"That much is true – not the drag part. A drag queen would be more fashionably dressed." Cassandra answered professorially.

"But she's a brittle tool." Spike smiled wickedly. "Cassandra: Stand still!"

Buffy found this a bit cruel. She liked Cassandra _as a person and a genuinely good one_.

Spike picked her up and put her over his shoulder. "She has to obey _us_."

Cassandra did nothing and bore the humiliation like a saint. Buffy felt for her: even if Cassandra didn't show emotion; her pride took a hit each time she had to obey a trivial command.

Spike found holding her over his shoulder very interesting. She was warm like a human but had a very low hum, not a pulse and she weighed only about forty kilograms. He heard a fan and felt a warm breeze blew over his hand from her back.

"What do you think of this Cassandra?" Willow felt proud Cassandra's humiliation. Willow didn't trust Cassandra fully – she kept expecting the robot to 'turn' evil or to suddenly rampage.

"I have to obey his orders too." Casandra said in a matter of fact accepting manner in spite of the deep injury she endured to her pride. "Someone else can give me orders to stand under a tree or dance like a dog begging for a treat." She looked at her hand. "I have a cut."

* * *

"Couldn't we set a password only Buffy, Xander and I know?" Willow sat with Cassandra on the couch. "I don't know if having Anya or Spike or anyone else give you orders and forcing you to do their will is a good idea."

Cassandra sat on the couch with her amber eyes looking like they held great pain: her pride had been injured when Spike threw her over his shoulder. She had explained to Willow that the cut would heal and had to show Willow how to use nail polish remover to free her fingers because her whitish blood had glued Willow's fingers together.

Buffy sat on the recliner. "Have you learned your lessons for the day?"

"I wasn't aware of any lessons." Cassandra explained pitifully.

"You don't understand people very well and you have no understanding of vampires or demons. Spike is not just a crass, overbearing, angry man – he's a vampire," She paused, "he has a complicated past and he's a killer. You should never take on his kind in a fight because you have no chance."

"No chance? I rated my chances very high." Cassandra protested.

"You had a chance because Spike didn't see you as food or an obstacle to food." Buffy stopped Cassandra in mid sentence. "He sees you as technology and you're a toy to him. He wanted a battle of wits and he paid for his pride. Others of his kind won't make the same mistake. You have an advantage _only because he can't eat silicon or carbon fiber or the glue you call blood_."

Cassandra sat silent for a moment. "I have to give your idea some thought. My engineers didn't want me to have _too_ much latitude in choosing to obey commands from people. I have no directives on obeying the undead so I default to the same behavior I have to humans." She looked at Buffy. "I face the same problem you face trying to see in the microwave bands – you can try but your mind and body isn't up to the task."

Buffy stood up. "I enjoy your company and the house looks great but I have bigger fish to fry."

"I don't recall buying any fish." Cassandra advised.

"I have the potentials to train." Buffy reminded Cassandra. Buffy had to remind herself that in some ways, Cassandra was a computer and _'thought'_ in a different way but this made her no less frustrating.

Cassandra nodded. "Advise the others to be careful about how they speak to me."

* * *

"From now on, anyone here who commands Cassandra to do stupid things will answer to me." Buffy announced over the breakfast table. "I mean this – Anya."

"I learned my lesson when she kept me up explaining German classical music." Anya picked up her glass of juice from the counter.

"Cassandra has a few software glitches and we don't want her blundering into some fatal situation because someone gave her stupid orders." Buffy continued. "She has her duties and _so ask and don't command_."

Buffy looked over the group now eating their breakfast.

Cassandra fussed over the kitchen.

Buffy spoke over the noises of the group having breakfast.

"Nod if you understand." She said sternly.

Everyone at the table nodded.

"Good." Buffy said sharply. "Now nod if you're _lying!_"

A number of confused voices mumbled.

"You _can lie_." Buffy asked loudly. "Cassandra can't lie if she's captured. They could use her to get to us because if someone orders her to tell everything; _she'll tell them_." Buffy let this sink in.

"My mandate is the accurate processing of information without error or distortion." Cassandra bragged in her own way. "You couldn't trust a computer which failed to deliver accuracy and precision." She held the coffee carafe. "You can't have the airplane computers lying about fuel or altitude or malfunctions. We have value only as far as we perform as designed."

"Yes...well," Buffy looked out over her group, "I gave Spike a similar lecture. Don't have knife fights with the seemingly defenseless robot who can think a thousand times faster than you. You may win but _I have no idea how to take a knife out of __a__ robot_. I don't know how to find the particular engineer at MIT who built our friend and could tell me."

A rabble of voices mumbled.

"I gave Cassandra a command to stand under that chestnut tree in front of the house." Anya held a glass of juice in her hand. "She did exactly what I ordered her to do." Anya stared out at the girls at the dining room table. "Cassandra the robot may not show emotion but she has ways of making you suffer even a former vengeance demon could not have thought up. She has many petty torments."

* * *

Cassandra had her _'duties'_ which involved making the kitchen orderly. She had her day planned: she had errands to run and she would keep out of_ 'potential business'_. She had to pick up roughly a grand worth of groceries because while fighting evil had moral rewards; it didn't pay for lunch. Milk always ran out and several people in the house had never figured out how to open the 'American Style' paper carton. She had resorted to running down to the local _Seven Eleven _at the last moment but the convenience of the convenience store open all hours was outweighed by the hundred percent mark up compared to the local Safeway.

She had to buy other supplies. Willow had explained female hygiene to Cassandra. Cassandra told her in a polite way not to continue as all Cassandra needed to know was _'what to buy'_ and not the _'why'_.

Cassandra was a prude about these _'facts of life'_ things. She purchased them without complaint but had earned odd looks from the Target cashier for the sheer bulk of her hygiene product purchase which soared up past the triple digit mark on occasion.

Cassandra waited for a lull in the conversations around the table to speak up.

"We don't have cable TV." Cassandra began in her typical manner. "We barely have FOX. I mention this because before the cable people cut us off; they sent us a large bill. They have now begun to send us threats. Should I pay that bill when I go out?"

"Don't bother." Buffy said dryly. "If we live out the month then they can sue me."

"They are very credible threats." Cassandra explained. "I have a shopping trip to plan because we've run out of many things."

"Take Anya with you and get what you need." Buffy told Cassandra dismissively. "Don't take any of her stupid orders."

Anya believed – with some justification – Buffy sent her with Cassandra on the shopping trip not for Cassandra's safety but to aggravate _her_. Buffy had gone shopping with Cassandra to make certain she had no unsavory plans and Cassandra didn't. The android was a fussy, boring and all together annoying person to shop with as she took her time. Buffy concluded Cassandra wasn't likely to be evil _but_ she was obsessive, detail oriented, boring in most social situations and pedantic.

"This particular sanitary napkin claims to be the _'greatest thing ever' _which does trivialize vaccines, electronics and magnetic resonance imaging." Cassandra stood in the aisle of the local Target and piled hygiene products into the red plastic cart. "Of course Willow explained the need for these things but I just find it all unsettling."

In the grocery section of Wal – Mart things were just as annoying.

Anya stood next to Cassandra as the android fussed over prices on milk and held on to the shopping cart.

"Today is a blue day for you." Anya tapped her feet impatiently.

This did no good because Cassandra was so awful at reading people.

"Buying milk doesn't involve this much work." Anya complained in hopes of making this process go faster. "Buy the milk and move on."

"We have a budget." Cassandra reminded Anya of the obvious.

"I could have stayed home and done nothing while you read bar codes." Anya griped. "Buffy asked me to protect you because that Caleb guy is stalking you."

"Right." Cassandra handed three plastic jugs of milk to Anya. "Next on my list – orange juice."

"My life has come to this." Anya complained for effect. "I used to be a powerful vengeance demon and now I have the job of babysitting Buffy's robot."

"I'm not Buffy's robot." Cassandra walked along with Anya searching out the deals on orange juice. "I'm my own robot."

"Where else do you have to go." Anya waited at the end of the fruit juice aisle. The words she didn't want to hear referred to any electronics retailer. "It's almost noon."

Cassandra took a moment to appear to double check her itinerary.

"Radio Shack." Cassandra motioned for Anya to push the cart. "We'll have a need for flashlights and batteries when the vast majority of people in this town cut and run."

Anya winced because she had heard the '_Best Buy'_ horror story told by Buffy. As Cassandra was electronic, _Best Buy_ served much the same function as a church did for Christians and she spent three hours browsing when she had gone into the store to buy a ten dollar clock radio. The expensive but bagless vacuum and costly computer were not on the list but she bought them_ 'just in case'_.

"Just as long as you don't spend another hour in there. I used to be a demon and had no worries about losing an hour or two as I could live for thousands of years. As a human mortal, I have to make each hour matter."

"You missed the subordinate clause I carefully added to that last statement." Cassandra told Anya. "When the people evacuate this fine city because they don't want to die; the people maintaining the electrical grid will leave us too. We'll need flashlight."

"Can you simply buy batteries so we can get out of this place?" Anya hated Radio Shack since it stocked nothing of any interest to her.

Cassandra kept returning to the cashier with batteries, flashlights, then a radio powered by a spring crank and a ham radio kit.

Anya watched the heap of items grow.

"How do you plan to pay for this?" Anya noticed the radio looked very expensive. "We don't have money for all that stuff!"

"I do." Cassandra held up a bank card. "I have a military salary and pension."

The young freckled teenage boy manning the cash register looked reverently at Cassandra. "You are military? What service?" He began scanning items through the register.

"Cybernetics." Cassandra answered as she swiped the card. "We work to develop artificial intelligence systems for battlefield deployment." She punched in her code. "Of course I've finished my tour of duty."

"Cool." He said in that friendly manner found in all young teenagers working for Radio Shack.

"She's visiting friends in town." Anya lied because Cassandra couldn't lie. "We're happy to see her again."

Anya patted Cassandra on the back. "Now lets get going."

"Thank you." Cassandra said as she picked up the large bags and felt Anya pushing her in the direction out of the shop.

Anya pushed Cassandra out of the mall.

"Why hasn't the military come to look for you?" Anya walked with Cassandra. The little girl looked out of place but no one noticed her mousy presence and odd habits. "I thought you left the military when they abandoned the base."

"That is true." Cassandra admitted. "The military must have had some hint of the events to come. They fled with their secrets to protect their own interests to the very end. They left me behind to record the ways of the enemy. I can come up with no better answer than this."

"Can't they track you?" Anya watched Cassandra open up the back of the jeep.

"They designed a tracking device but they never installed it." Cassandra had wondered about this decision. "I have the WiFi and mobile network interfaces – I have the ability to access the internet and GPS – but no tracking system. I don't know why."

Anya found Cassandra a sad figure in her own way. She had great pride in her performance as a machine, she saw her place in this world with utter clarity and yet had to speak the truth. The admission of her abandonment carried with it the kind of sad cruelty humans often inflicted on those in their care.

"I'm suddenly depressed." Anya stood at the passenger door of the jeep. "Let's go home."

Cassandra finished placing bags in the back of the jeep and entered the driver's door.

"And no Mahler!" Anya commanded before Cassandra had reached the CD pocket. "I put up with that awful crap coming here."

"I was hoping to listen to_ Vaughan Williams Fourth_." Cassandra said as she took her hand out of the CD pocket.

* * *

Willow helped Cassandra and Anya unpack supplies.

"We've encountered robots before _and they_ had emotions. They didn't always behave themselves." Willow asked. "Why don't you have any emotions?"

"Other robots with emotions? Really?" Cassandra locked onto the first of Willow's remarks. She _didn't_ sound surprised but this information came as news to her. "I didn't know this."

"We even encountered a robot version of Buffy." Willow carried three plastic bags into the house. "She was evil."

"I can only speak for myself: I have no knowledge of other robots." Cassandra answered carefully. "I don't have emotions because my primary function doesn't require them."

"What is your primary function?" Willow returned with her to the jeep.

"The accurate processing and reporting of information without prejudice or error." Cassandra pulled out the receipt and stopped under the large chestnut tree to examine its contents. "More specifically, I was built for the purposes of predicting budgets, military procurement and performing complex calculations needed in order to manage battlefield resources. I know that sounds mundane but the plan was to have a machine of my type in every military base to perform these functions."

"Why do you have such a human appearance? You speak and walk like we do."

"Supercomputers have great power but also have complex interfaces." She read the receipt and continued speaking. "The time required to program such a machine to run something like a military simulation often took months or years and a single mistake could ruin all that work. A group of computer scientists at MIT and in the military decided building a supercomputer with artificial intelligence, a convincing human form and language could greatly reduce the time required for programming simulations. I came out of that work."

"Why did they make you so _realistically _human?" Willow squinted in the hot sun.

"In many situations such as on board an aircraft carrier or in a command and control bunker, a human form is far more functional. I can move and function in the same environments as people so the military doesn't need to design hardware to accommodate me. You don't require a post graduate degree in computer science to interact with me and I can provide answers to problems in plain language. This is a huge advantage in military situations." Cassandra looked down at her robes. "My designers did give me this uniform and this form which does make me look different. They may have had some reason or simply decided to make me 'cute'."

"The robots I know of worked like weapons." Willow began to feel the heat.

"All of the best military technologies have wound up having much more lucrative commercial applications." Cassandra folded the receipt and neatly tucked it into her vest. "The Internet, jet engines and radar are examples. My designers had plans to market a machine similar to me for the same purposes to commercial and government agencies. Weapons of mass destruction and robotic assassins, drones may make bloodthirsty military brass happy but they grow the deficit and add to human misery."

"So you're more like _Data from Star Trek _than the Buffybot?" Willow patted and pushed Cassandra on the back to move her toward the house.

"I have no idea what that could mean." Cassandra reached the door first and opened it, holding it for Willow. "You can work with me far better if you think of me as a computer with a very good spoken language interface. Emotions will simply confuse me and make it more difficult for me to work."

* * *

Cassandra had a bright purple colored vacuum.

The British engineer selling them in the television ads claimed the vacuum was a marvel of modern engineering. Buffy saw it as a collection of gaudy colored plastic and a waste of three hours of her life but Cassandra did the vacuuming and her fussy nature didn't allow her to use the mundane cheap hundred dollar model Buffy had on hand.

The fancy model was no less noisy.

Still, with Cassandra vacuuming, this let Buffy have time to worry.

At exactly eight in the evening, Cassandra vacuumed because in her mind this was the optimum vacuuming time.

Copies of _The Hockey News_ had begun to form a neat pile on the coffee table. For amusement, the potentials would shift them a millimeter and wait for Cassandra to notice. She noticed instantly and she felt the compulsion to re-establish the proper order of things.

Buffy didn't understand why the fussy little cyborg loved hockey but when Kennedy had suggested hockey was yet another misogynistic sport; Cassandra took those as fighting words.

Cassandra rolled into the living room at exactly eight fifteen.

"Which one of your troop wears boots indoors?" Cassandra asked Buffy as she pulled the vacuum over the mat in front of the door. "I do this to pay back your hospitality not because its the best use of my massive processing power."

"I had no idea." Buffy looked up from the copy of_ The Hockey News_ she had begun to read.

One of the potentials named Kennedy stomped down the stairs.

"Can I ask you something?" She walked to Cassandra who obligingly shut down the vacuum.

"I know the vacuum makes noise. Spike told me _that_ much." Cassandra answered back. "If I live through the next four weeks, I'll award him the prize for stating the obvious."

"Did Giles talk to you about the vision quest?" Kennedy asked urgently.

"I couldn't find Smores." Cassandra replied. "You didn't want to ask that but your real question has the answer _'tomorrow afternoon'_ and_ 'you can't take my jeep'_."

* * *

"_Vision quests_ don't interest me." Cassandra walked past Giles with her purple vacuum as he paced the living room.

"How did you...?" Giles waved his hand. "You can't have visions _can you_?"

"Buffy explained to everyone about the plan to seek out something about someone." Cassandra picked up and placed a set of notes on the fireplace. "You will take a bunch of girls out to the desert and according to the native cultures of the area; eat some kind of cactus. I can't metabolize peyote."

"I wanted you to make sure the girls have everything ready." Giles explained as he checked his pockets. "You have the list I gave you. I trust you to do all the shopping but I don't trust those girls not to forget it." Giles looked at Cassandra. "I've decided to take Anya along. I may regret this."

"I have a tendency to overheat in the desert heat and sand is bad for computers." Cassandra turned to face Giles as she stood at the front door. "I have one function and that will be driving the rabble in your car and then spending the rest of the quest trying to find NPR on the dial and having girls dress me up in cactus flowers. I have foreseen."

Cassandra opened the door and then called out: "Have any of you done something with my jeep?" She waited a moment as she held the door open. "Why has Rhoda driven off with _my_ jeep? Did anyone tell her not to mess with my radio?"

Cassandra had her dignity intact but Giles had the sense she was put out. She disappeared in a flourish of her black robe – today was time for teal - a calming color which Giles hoped generalized to the young girls.

"Who said you could take the jeep?" Cassandra stood out by the tree and said loudly.

"You left the keys in it." Rhoda explained. "I took it around the block. Can't we take it instead of the car?"

"I suppose that's my fault." Cassandra never showed irritation but she had ways of expressing her displeasure with the conduct of others. "Did you touch the radio?"

"What?" Rhoda said in a surprised voice. "Why would a robot care?"

"I happen to be _a fussy_ robot." Cassandra answered back in a lecturing tone. "I have come out to make sure you take only the supplies approved of by _the fortunate man sent by Fate_ to guide you on this quest."

"I checked the supplies, the girls have everything they need." Anya answered back as she checked a list on a notepad.

"Can I have my car keys back?" Cassandra asked in a more gentile voice. "I have my radio settings to check."

"Which one of you will have to look after Kennedy and which one of you will have to calm down a put out computer?" Giles muttered as he searched the living room for anything left behind.

The potentials mobbed Cassandra before she could open the door of the jeep.

A moment later, Cassandra entered into the door with the bearing like a hen with ruffled feathers. She held the key fob and held it up as the jeep made its two loud beeps.

"They have all the supplies they need." Cassandra stormed off toward the kitchen. "If you happen to need me, I'll be in the kitchen trying to avoid being stuffed in a goalie bag!"

* * *

"The chip?" Cassandra unplugged the kettle from the counter outlet. "What chip?"

"You know I make the tea here. I had the kettle all ready and waiting for Willow and she goes ahead and makes tea for Kennedy." Cassandra couldn't show emotion but Buffy understood her _'dignity'_ was at risk and she had already had her feathers ruffled when the potentials had picked on her. Buffy had spent the better part of an hour listening to her complain about how being stuffed into a goalie bag made her run less efficiently. "You mentioned a chip placed in the brains of vampires designed to keep them from hurting people."

"Spike has a chip." Buffy told Cassandra. "The military implanted it in a secret project."

"I had wondered why he was chained up to the wall but I didn't ask because I had to deal with a complaint from one of your herd about the hot water being too hot. I turned down the thermostat." Cassandra still had a few ruffled feathers. "Biomedical implants have always been dodgy. Wetware and silicon don't interact very well – even civilian projects like artificial retinas never worked well. Something about host versus graft disease."

"While you make me a cup of tea, can you explain more?" Buffy sat at the table.

"But you didn't want tea?" Cassandra plugged in the kettle. "I had predicted you wanted a glass of water. You're having tea to spare my non existent feelings." She leaned against the counter and cleared her throat. "The military has long had an interest in brain implants. During the Gulf War, they experimented with an implant to raise awareness in fighter pilots – the air force thought hopping them up could extent their mission time. They abandoned the idea because the test chimps went insane and ate each other. Science doesn't know enough about the brain to manipulate it to do its bidding."

"You never say anything reassuring." Buffy said as Cassandra poured the hot water into a mug.

"Technology has advanced since that time but the brain remains mysterious, largely unknown territory." Cassandra handed a red glass mug to Buffy. "The idea of controlling the brain and mind still seems all too good to pass up on. For those seeking power, mind control is a technology too good ignore."

Cassandra sat down on a chair opposite to Buffy. "Secrets aren't revealed to me. I can't tell you anything more than what_ I've_ heard. I can make some educated guesses."

Buffy sighed. "What do _you_ think?" Buffy had the impression Cassandra had a dim view of human nature.

"If you'll bear with me?" Cassandra raised her hand.

"Sure." Buffy said patiently.

"The military made the chip for the purpose of using vampires as a weapon." Cassandra spoke with her usual confidence. "I don't see any other purpose for such a thing." She tapped the table nervously. "The good thing about chips – the computer type – is that regardless of their use in secret projects, most of them are based on simple commercial designs. My vision and hearing use components made by Canon and Samsung; Intel is also inside. If I could examine the chip and the code, I could reprogram a generic type processor to do the job." Cassandra tilted her head for a moment. "This requires surgery to extract it and then fixing the chip. I can set myself the task of building the software only after I see the thing and can download the code."

"I'll leave that open as an option," Buffy stood up, "a final option."

* * *

Cassandra heard a dish fall.

"Andrew!?" Cassandra wiped her hands and then put the dish towel down. "I have to admit this had been an odd day." She looked into the living room and saw Andrew groping Willow. "The next part of this story involves sending the robot out to bury Andrew's body."

Cassandra processed this and looked around the room. She listened carefully but couldn't work out why everyone thought she was Warren. Cassandra didn't have that instant sense of recognition for faces found in humans. She wasn't a social creature but her algorithms for pattern recognition had enough sophistication to calculate the odds she had mistaken Willow for Warren as very low.

Spike staggered past and then fell over on the living room floor.

Cassandra hesitated to push past the panicked group examining Willow.

"I'll help Spike." Buffy told Cassandra who had begun retreating into the kitchen.

With so much taking place at once, Cassandra had to find a quiet place, so she retreated to the kitchen and began checking her hardware. A machine built for the accurate processing of data couldn't understand why people had become confused by the identity of Willow when in the eyes of Cassandra no such doubt existed – Willow was Willow. She had to make certain this wasn't an error on her part.

Willow rushed out.

"Did you see that?" Kennedy came to Cassandra in a rush. "Willow's turned into that Warren guy."

"I saw Willow rush out of the house. I thought you had the Spanish Flu or smallpox." Cassandra explained calmly. "I never saw the person who you claimed to see. I don't 'see' I process data and that data speaks of Willow."

"Yes...okay..." Kennedy rushed back toward the living room.

"A lot of excitement around here." Xander found Cassandra drying off the last of the dishes as she had fled to the kitchen to get out of the rush. "Buffy has gone off with Spike to try and find a fix for that chip. Willow has turned into Warren and we don't know why."

"I saw Willow." Cassandra placed a glass in the cupboard in her precise and fussy way. "I couldn't see anyone else such as this Warren you all saw. I keep having to remind you I have no living mind to fool."

"Uh well...a weird day," Xander sensed the _'princess'_ struggling with these events, "if it makes you feel any better, none of us know what is happening either."

* * *

"We think Giles might be the _First_." Xander stood over Cassandra who held a screwdriver in one hand and had the movie player in a neat pile in front of her. "Did you sense anything?"

"No?" Cassandra bent over the skeleton of the machine.

"Can't you sense the presence of the _First_?" Anya asked impatiently.

"I have a perfect memory so I can sense when she screws up or defies normal expectation." Cassandra bragged in her own way. She had endured many assaults to her 'prowess' as a computer and sought to remind everyone of her skills. "Giles has done nothing to make me think he's not Giles and he appears to have mass." She turned a white plastic gear with her finger. "He knows where the town of Dorking lies in Britain, so what brings this on?"

"He went into the desert with the potentials." Anya said as she poked Cassandra. "I've bumped into you over the last few days so I know your 'real' but no one can remember touching Giles."

"You jabbed me with your finger." Cassandra corrected. "In your mind, jabbing things is the first step to enlightenment through the scientific method?" Cassandra couldn't really express irritation or sound condescending so she paused for a moment. "I heard Hawking began by jabbing people."

"That is called _'not helping'_ in the human world." Xander answered back.

Cassandra continued turning the white plastic gear in the machine. "Someone stuck a copy of _Absolutely Fabulous_ they taped off public broadcasting inside the VCR. _Absolutely Fabulous _is a British Sitcom most Americans have never heard of. Is Giles a fan of British comedy?" She stopped when the machine made a series of satisfying clicks and held up the video tape. "Is anyone else here both British enough to record their favorite British comedy and archaic enough to use the VCR side of this thing? Most people don't know they get PBS on Channel 54."

"If no one uses the VCR why fix it?" Anya asked. "Anyway, your opinion is duly noted. You can babysit Andrew while we go and find the potentials camp in the desert."

Andrew pleaded with Anya, Xander and Dawn to be allowed to go along.

Cassandra never understood why humans asked her for her opinion on things and then promptly rejected it. She placed the cassette with the tape into the slot and bent over and plugged the VCR into a nearby outlet to properly test it.

"We had a phone call." Andrew begged to be believed. "The man said Giles died."

Cassandra had decided to try to concentrate on one problem: Spike's chip. Her fussy behavior came out of the lack of any headway she could make on the problem even with access to all the science she could muster on the Internet on the subject of brain implants. She placed that problem on hold and gave this some thought.

"We seldom believe everything told to us over the phone. I'd have a million dollars and a dozen 'free' vacations to the Bahamas if I did." She pronounced as the group left through the door taking Andrew with them.

"And could you lend us the keys?" Xander came back.

Cassandra threw her keys to Xander. "Don't play with the radio." She finished her sentence after the door slammed shut.

* * *

Buffy returned to find Cassandra laying back on the couch listening to _Vaughan Williams Sixth_ _Symphony_ at a dangerously unsafe volume.

Cassandra watched Spike head downstairs as Buffy approached her.

"It was a quick fix?" Cassandra placed the CD player and the headphones on the coffee table.

"We had it removed." Buffy tossed the silver pill shaped device to Cassandra who caught it. "It had begun to run out of power."

"Brain surgery in less time it takes to cook a large turkey?" Cassandra looked over the device and the thin wire which dangled about ten centimeters from it and connected to a tantalum electrode. She turned it over in her hands and examined it closely. "A standard issue implanted defibrillator used for heart patients? They must have thought the moral dimensions of their work merited the secrecy."

"What's _that_ mean?" Buffy sat in the large armchair.

Cassandra tossed it back to Buffy.

"If you look at the case, you can read the make and model of that device. They made it for heart patients. If their heart starts to beat irregularly, that thing sends a shock to the electrode and resets it to a normal rhythm." Cassandra relaxed on the couch. "The military obviously put very different software in that thing to make Spike behave by jolting his brain."

"He's recovering in the basement." Buffy said softly. "Any news about Giles?"

"The _Fantastic Four_ went into the desert _and_ changed my radio settings _and_ found Giles by a campfire and completely corporeal." Cassandra lay back and enjoyed the quiet in the house. "All of them have returned and promised to reset the radio to my preferences at some undetermined point in the future."

"Has Willow come back as Willow?"

Cassandra raised her hand and scratched the back of her head. "That storyline I don't understand. Willow was always Willow. She returned with Kennedy and a gun about a half hour ago and was Willow. I saw her last night and she was Willow. I have no clue why everyone thought she was this Warren fellow. I could ask but Willow seemed upset and I'm not entirely sure Kennedy likes me."

Cassandra waited a moment. "If Spike no longer has that chip; how do you expect to constrain his behavior."

"He has a soul."

"Such subtlety." Cassandra muttered. "We still face as much danger if Spike goes feral. Is the removal of the chip the best choice given that we have a house full of human prey."

"He can choose just like we can choose."

"I lack a soul or a mind or a choice." Cassandra lay back. "Spike had a chip in his head to keep him from harming others –_ that worked imperfectly_. I have a set of computer commands that preclude doing harm to others by making it_ unthinkable_. I have begun to wonder how much of the military experience with chipping vampires led to the decision to simply deny me the choice to do harm?"

Buffy held the implant like a charm.

Buffy disliked Cassandra when she was direct, to the point and brutally honest at times but devoid of passion or caring. She often was quite right but she delivered her verdict with all of the subtle force of a mallet.

"Do you see him as a threat to us?"

"A well fed lion in captivity poses little threat. She has little motivation to go to the trouble of eating the zookeeper as long as the zookeeper keeps the meat coming." Cassandra mused over the subject. "He does pose a threat but Willow and Kennedy have a gun. I don't see him posing any more of a threat to us than any one of you mentally unstable humans I have come to know and not understand. If someone wanted to kill me with a gun, I'd hide behind Spike because he possesses a strong instinct for self preservation and I'm not part of his food chain."

* * *

Kennedy found Cassandra fussing over the coffee maker and watching the kettle.

"I came to make Willow some of her favorite tea." She wondered why she had to explain her intentions with a machine.

"I have the kettle on." Cassandra turned around.

"You never saw her as Warren?" Kennedy asked with trepidation.

"Not at all." Cassandra primped herself. "I have no idea why I wasn't fooled."

Kennedy stood beside Cassandra and picked through the glass container on the counter containing the packets of mint tea.

"I was about to prepare tea for her." Cassandra looked at Kennedy. "The question you will ask me pertains to my desires in a partner – to which I will reply that I have no such desires."

"I came to make tea." Kennedy had wanted to ask for advice on relationships but Cassandra had predicted this part of the conversation. This denied Kennedy of the small pleasure of making the prudish machine uncomfortable. The potentials had come to call her _'Princess'_ because while a machine; she came across as a fussy, prim and proper, prudish, stuck up know-it-all as it had never occurred to any of them a computer had the function of storing and retrieving facts. The Sommer's residence had two camps: Buffy and Giles who found her cute and charming and Kennedy who found her insufferable.

"Homosexuality is rare in females." Cassandra watched Kennedy make the tea. "Statistical rates vary between one to two percent depending on the statistical methodology and definitions. Rates of homosexuality in men is five times higher. I have no direct experience in these matters but I can access quick facts."

"I'll take this to Willow." Kennedy picked up the mug and met Anya as she entered the kitchen. "_The Princess_ is at her best today." Kennedy almost whispered.

"What time is it?" Anya asked Cassandra.

Anya belongs to the more neutral third camp in the house who liked Cassandra because she kept the house neat, had the time, a warm cup of tea and always had an answer for questions like 'how do you spell...?' Anya was lazy by nature and so Cassandra saved her much effort. Anya did find the little robot with the fussy nature all but impossible to have a casual conversation with. She was often oblivious to common sense.

Cassandra placed a mug of chamomile tea in front of Anya. "When I end this sentence it will be eleven thirteen and forty three seconds."

"All the excitement and I can't sleep." Anya yawned.

"In what way am I at my best?" Cassandra turned the kettle off.

"Ignore her." Anya advised and sipped her tea. "She's one of those _'buff and serious'_ lesbians and she has no sense of humor. You have that doll like cuteness – the opposite of buff – plus your dry, dark humor and clever sarcasm makes some people uncomfortable."

* * *

Spike had a very bad headache and_ Vaughan Williams __Ninth__ Symphony _coming from the kitchen ghetto blaster was not helping him in any way. Spike was British enough to know Vaughan Williams had composed a few prominent pieces of British music and not in the loop enough to know the man had a dissonant side. Cassandra was intent on playing as many of his works as she could borrow from the library.

Spike held his head. "I don't have the pain in my head any more so has that idiotic robot made it her job to give me a new headache?" He grumbled under his breath.

Killing Cassandra could do no good. Buffy liked her and as the Scooby Gang in her jeep had discovered, she had ways of tormenting others beyond her physical reach. She had decided to disable the radio controls in the jeep so no one but her could fiddle with them and half of the relief upon finding Giles was from fleeing some endlessly looped hideous Shostakovitch piece in the CD player.

Spike had concluded she had a kind of soul and a devious one at that.

At the conclusion of the first movement of that odd work, he wanted to stumble upstairs but knew better. He shouted: "Turn that garbage off." to no avail.

An irritated Anya found her way to the kitchen.

"I came down an hour ago complaining of lack of sleep." Anya followed Cassandra around the dining room. "In that time you have bumbled around here making noise, listened to _National Public Radio_ and now are playing some dead guy and his hoard at an unsafe volume. Are you a closet sadist?"

"This can't be good." Buffy found Cassandra under the chestnut tree three hours later with the kitchen ghetto blaster playing the local FM radio station at a high volume. "Are you out here because of free will or because they wanted to sleep?"

"Sleep." Cassandra said with dignity. "Can I ask you to shut off the radio. I've heard the same Gwen Stephani song three times. I consider this torture."

"Come with me." Buffy gave Cassandra a gentle push. "Who put you out here."

"Kennedy carried me out and set me down under the tree. Willow told me to stay and Kennedy set the radio up to torment me." Cassandra walked ahead of Buffy. "Evidently _Vaughan Williams_ merits some kind of punishment."

Willow met Buffy at the front door. "We love Cassandra but she isn't capable of understanding the concept of _quiet_."

"This time I squirmed in protest but Willow ordered me to stand under the tree until she returned." Cassandra felt the need to inform or warn Buffy. "I apologize for the undone laundry."


End file.
